Other links

Photo voices

by backpackingbongos

Please bear with me whilst I veer off my usual outdoor course.

During November my work colleagues and I have been out and about in Nottinghamshire County helping service users lobby their local councillors. Nottinghamshire County council have decided to buck the national trend and are proposing to cut the supporting people budget by up to 67%, this is on top of the 20% cuts already set for the next four years. This will affect the most vulnerable people in the county. As part of this lobbying we have been taking photographs of people who access various services holding up a message they would like to convey to those who make the decisions. This hopefully puts a human face to those who will be affected. Here are a few of the photos that we have taken, the full set can be viewed here.

James I have got this sent as a Twitter link to Matt Seaton who is the boss of the Guardian in New York. If you have any other names use them as well. You can of course just get in touch with the Guardian direct which would be a good idea – the project is quality work to be proud of.

Best of luck James. The public sector, along with quasi-public service organisations, will suffer greatly in the coming decade and I sincerely hope the people we serve don’t suffer as a consequence. Sadly, I think they will. I suspect others will have a lot to say but The problem is that money has been routinely badly spent by those we elect to run our country.

These are stunning images and perfectly sum up why services that support the most vulnerable in our society should not be cut. Keep up the good work. The pictures and statements brought a tear to my eye!

James, what a powerful way of conveying the human cost of cutting the services supporting some of our society’s most vulnerable people. I found some of these images of people holding their signs with their messages very moving, but then I’m not an evil, heartless scumbag from the Coalition of Doom. I don’t that it’s because the C of D can’t make the conceptual leap to envisage real human suffering as a result of their policies, I actually think that they don’t give a toss.

The backlash is beginning and the Tories are going to render themselves unelectable in the near future – I sincerely hope. Good luck with the fight against the Grim Reapers of your local authority, James.

What is wrong is the fact local authorities can be savage in their cuts. 11.5% at Government level should not lead to 69% at a county level. Do people not know that the money is there. OK 11.5% less over the next spending round is a lot. But Labour did not give a increase in the last few years which is in effect real cut to the most needy. The issues are the ring-fence has gone and local elected well off folks get to make brutal decisions about the money. Government should have enforced a ring fence in this case. Great effort James and well done.

Thanks everyone for their supportive comment, it’s good to know that people out there who do actually care about what happens to those who are vulnerable in our society. It was a real eye opener to meet all of these people, we sat and wrote letters with them as well, there were many very sad stories there. They really wanted to relay what a difference receiving support has made in their lives. We are hoping to get some of these photo’s published in the local Nottingham Post and perhaps the Guardian.